The 3 Budget Plans: How Do They Stack Up?

Now that President Obama has sent his 2014 budget proposal to Congress, three blueprints for the nation’s fiscal future are on the table.

The other two are sharply divergent plans drafted by the lawmakers who chair the congressional budget committees: Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). The Republican-controlled House passed the Ryan budget on March 21; the Democratic-controlled Senate passed the Murray budget two days later.

We surveyed news accounts and nonpartisan analyses to pull together the side-by-side summary of key provisions below. Keep in mind that because the competing budget proposals are built around different sets of economic assumptions (known in Washington-speak as “budget baselines”) and contain revenue and spending projections through 2023, you may very well see different numbers elsewhere. We aimed for “apples to apples” comparisons, relying on the budget baseline used by both the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Compare the three plans on the table. And we encourage you to enter your thoughts about the plans in the comments section below (“Tell Us What You Think”).